Beer Brewing Course Messaging Case Study

How I stumbled onto better promises

Welcome to Behind the Message, eight case studies featuring my favorite messaging projects from my past decade in marketing.

Let's kick it off with my own offering: a beer brewing course I created around 2014 called “Call It Your Own.”

This was early in my messaging journey when I didn’t yet have the Five Lightbulbs framework. So far, I'd been figuring out the marketing thing as I went. I had _way_ more failures than successes, but the successes were enough that I was able to leave my career in the energy industry.

But now, I was flying solo with no paycheck, and it was sink or swim.

"Time to sell more beer brewing courses," I thought.

The promises I made in those early beer courses were obvious: “Brew the best beer possible.”

Makes sense, right? Tell people they’ll make great-tasting beer. That's what they want.

And while that promise _kinda_ worked, it never quite landed the way I'd hoped.

So, I started digging deeper into what my customers _actually_ wanted. Fed up with guessing, I did something novel: I talked to them on the phone.

But instead of talking, I asked questions and listened. _Really_ listened.

Using an exercise I share in Chapter 6 of Simple Marketing for Smart People, the Cycles exercise, I asked them about their cycle of brewing beer.

That's when I heard the pattern. The majority of the homebrewers I spoke with said something like this:

"I found an IPA recipe on the internet, and then added a touch of lime."

So many of them would take a recipe and then tweak it. But why? Why not just brew the recipe as-is?

After much digging, they all said the same phrase: "I just want to brew a beer I could call my own."

That was the "aha" moment.

Sure, homebrewers want to brew great-tasting beer. But what they want even more is to brew a beer they can truly call their own.

That's why the name of my new course became "Call It Your Own." Instead of teaching people to follow recipes, I'd help them create their own signature recipes.

It was a hit. Over 50% of my email list purchased, a figure I'd never reached.

Looking back now through the Five Lightbulbs lens, I can see what was happening: I was experimenting with different Lightbulb 5's.

Lightbulb 5 represents the promise you’re making to your customer and their desired outcome.

“Great-tasting beer” was one version. “A beer you can truly call your own” was another.

The second one worked because it connected to something deeper. Ownership. Pride. The satisfaction of creating something uniquely yours.

The lesson isn't "appeal to pride." Just because it worked for my beer course doesn't mean it will work for your offer.

The lesson is to experiment with different Lightbulb 5's. The right promise changes how people think about your offer.

Try different ways of describing what your customer gets, and see which one makes them lean forward. You might be surprised by what you discover.

Even before that course became a hit, I was getting the itch to move on from my beer website. The success just confirmed what I already knew: I was ready for bigger challenges.

Now that I was learning about marketing and how it wasn't about countdown timers and going viral, but rather effective communication, I wanted to try out my new skills in larger arenas.

I'd soon get the opportunity, which you'll read about in the next Behind the Message coming this week. This person had a website much bigger than mine, but they still reached out for help.

Would I sink or swim? You'll find out soon.

Rooting for you,

Billy